


The Yardstick

by muzivitch



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-22
Updated: 2007-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muzivitch/pseuds/muzivitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="http://tongari.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://tongari.livejournal.com/"><b>tongari</b></a> at <a href="http://rikkai-exchange.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://rikkai-exchange.livejournal.com/"><b>rikkai_exchange</b></a></p>
    </blockquote>





	The Yardstick

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://tongari.livejournal.com/profile)[**tongari**](http://tongari.livejournal.com/) at [](http://rikkai-exchange.livejournal.com/profile)[**rikkai_exchange**](http://rikkai-exchange.livejournal.com/)

_**[Fic] The Yardstick | Yanagi +Kirihara, G**_  
Title: The Yardstick  
Author: Muzy [[](http://muzivitch.livejournal.com/profile)[ **muzivitch**](http://muzivitch.livejournal.com/) ]  
Series: Prince of Tennis  
Characters: Yanagi, Kirihara  
Rating: G  
Length: 1296 words  
Note: Written for [](http://tongari.livejournal.com/profile)[**tongari**](http://tongari.livejournal.com/) at [](http://rikkai-exchange.livejournal.com/profile)[**rikkai_exchange**](http://rikkai-exchange.livejournal.com/)

Kirihara flopped onto the sun-warmed grass and leaned his head back against a trunk. Practices had started to go better as the months got warmer, and Rikkai would make it to Nationals again, if he had to kill every single member of the club in order to get there. He wasn't sure whose idea it had been to make him the next captain of the Rikkai tennis club; sure, he was the most talented, but he didn't have any illusions. Leading a motley crew of tennis players with varying degrees of sanity was never going to be his strong point, especially considering that he was probably the wildest and the most insane one of them. Honestly, even trying to keep them all in line made him have a newfound respect for fukubuchou's trials and tribulations - it wasn't as if a single member of his club could even approach the antics he'd put Sanada through, Kirihara thought with a grin. Almost made him regret being so much of a pain.

Well. Not really, Kirihara mused as he leaned his head back. His teeth flashed white in his lightly tanned face. Torturing Sanada had been so much fun. And practically a club bonding activity.

"And here I expected Rikkai's fearsome buchou to be in his office plotting his opponent's destruction," interrupted a bland voice he hadn't heard in weeks, and Kirihara's bright green eyes popped open in surprise.

"Yanagi-senpai!" he said, levering himself up by the palms of his hands. "What are you doing here?"

"The high school department's not so very far away, Akaya," Renji murmured, his lips tilting up in the slight movement that consituted one of Yanagi Renji's smiles. "I decided it was past time to see how you were doing with them."

"Practice is over," Kirihara informed him with a grin that reminded Renji of the Cheshire Cat from one of the western children's stories his mother had read him years before. "I generally call it right before I get to the point where I can't resist lobbing balls at their heads."

Renji tucked his hands into his pockets. "That seems like a prudent course of action," he said. "How's it going?" he asked, and Kirihara lifted his shoulders in a negligent shrug.

"Better, I guess," he said. "I don't like doing it - all I want to do is play, you know? - but I'm getting used to it now, and I guess they're getting used to me." His eyes shifted towards Yanagi-senpai, and he smirked. "Plus, I got a volunteer for fukubuchou. Your protege."

Renji's eyebrows shot up. "I don't have a protege, Akaya," he said, and tipped his head to the side as Akaya exploded into laughter. The extra responsibility that Yukimura insisted they give Kirihara had changed him a little bit. There was a faint sheen of calm covering the wild intensity of his personality, but, Renji thought, that's all it was, a sheen. Underneath, Akaya was as much a live wire as he had ever been. The realization pleased him, but he couldn't have said exactly why.

"You definitely have a protege, Yanagi-senpai," Kirihara replied, shaking Renji out of his reverie. "You just don't remember him; you were more focused on what was in front of you than behind you, I guess."

"You're speaking in riddles, Akaya," Renji said smoothly, and Kirihara cackled with laughter again.

"Kobayashi Minoru," he said. "My age, so he's a third year this year. I noticed him last year," he added, "because he was the sort of short, sort of skinny guy who was always seven paces behind you scribbling in a notebook that looked almost exactly like yours, Yanagi-senpai." Kirihara frowned slightly, narrowing his eyes slightly. "I think I might have made fun of him some last year," he said, "but he seems to have forgiven me for it at any rate."

"Hmm." Renji thought that he could remember Kobayashi, now that Kirihara described him; he hadn't been a spectacular player on level with Kirihara or any of the rest of the regulars, but he'd been good, and he had a sharp, analytic brain. He was the kind of player that, in any normal year, Renji would have taken under his wing and trained up for just the position Kirihara had recruited him for anyway. But last year, he mused, had been anything but a normal year. "That's more of a fanboy, Akaya," he corrected after a moment's pause.

Kirihara shrugged and grinned, tipping his head to one side. "Whatever," he said. "Want to play a game with me, Yanagi-senpai?"

Yanagi-senpai's eyebrows always spoke before he did, Kirihara thought whimsically, as Renji's eyebrows lifted and disappeared under his thick black bangs. "You just finished practice," Renji said calmly after a moment's pause. "Why do you want to play again?" Akaya was obsessed with tennis, he thought; he expected that it was the first thing he thought of when he woke up in the morning, the last thing he thought of before he fell asleep at night, and he'd be entirely unsurprised if it featured prominently in his dreams - both at night, and during English class. For all that, though, Renji remembered, once practice was over Kirihara was off like a shot to the arcade and tennis was replaced with Mortal Kombat for at least forty-five minutes.

Kirihara pushed back his thick bush of curly black hair and grinned. "I don't really play at practice, Yanagi-senpai," he said, shaking his head at Yanagi-senpai's inquiring glance. "I mean, I play matches, sure, but it's not the same." He squinted, his nose scrunching up as he searched for words. "It's like...I'm the yardstick now, you know? Everyone on my team's measuring themselves against me. I can't measure myself against any of them." He leaned back against the rough bark of the tree and shrugged. "It's not really playing then. It's playing when we go at it." He tipped his head to the side and peered up at Renji. "So play with me?"

Renji's lips curved into his small smile. "One match."

"One match," Kirihara grinned as he bent down to grab his racket. He bounced back up and twirled his racket around his hand before balancing it on the tip of his finger - a cocky little move he'd stolen from Hyoutei's Shishido, Renji noted with some amusement as Akaya turned to face him, walking backwards towards the courts.

"I'm not going to let you win, Yanagi-senpai," Kirihara continued with a cocky toss of his head.

"I'd expect nothing less."

"Good," Akaya said, and he vaulted over the gate and onto the court, his tennis shoes slapping hard against the packed clay. "'Cause you're in for a fight."

It was more like a war, Kirihara thought when they'd finished the match and shook each other's hands afterwards. He was going to need a second shower, and Yanagi-senpai was in even worse shape, his school uniform shirt sticking to him and his short-cropped hair plastered to his head.

But he'd been able to really push himself to his limit, Kirihara thought as he pushed his sweat-soaked curls out of his eyes and grinned. He couldn't do that with his current teammates. "Hey, Yanagi-senpai," he called out, leaning against the fence. Yanagi was meticulously repacking his bag - some things didn't change - and glanced up.

"Akaya?"

"Can we do this again?" Kirihara asked. "I miss playing against you."

Renji's pause was almost imperceptible. "Of course," he said after a bare moment, shouldering his bag and pushing his wet hair out of his eyes. "Call me," he added as he turned away, lifting a hand as he walked out and towards the train station. Kirihara leaned his elbows on the fence and watched, and his mouth kicked up in a half-grin.

Yeah, he thought, his green eyes glittering with anticipation. He'd be calling Yanagi-senpai.


End file.
